Michael Moore’s Idiot Nation (2002), describes the overall lack of conscious to further
American intelligence in both elementary and high school level education. (He) sites numerous
reasons and uses subtle rhetorical devices to strengthen his convictions about education; he plays
towards the ethical standings of the readers and uses his own personal convictions, common
sense, an overall familiarity of the subject , and overt humor to display his confidence. (This is a
pretty big sentence, maybe break it up a little bit and it would be easier to follow.) The author
claims that the American education system suffers from a host of problematic situations, he
argues that the common American individual in plain and simple, incompetent. Americans he
argues, do not read, schools do not have the proper funding nor proper infrastructure to support
adequate learning. Moore even goes on to state that many schools even opened without a
principle. I didn’t get a clear thesis statement here, and you said something about his humor
however in your body I didn’t see anything mentioned about that. Give specific examples about
his personal convictions, I don’t think he is familiar with American stupidity and the educational
system I think he just uses hard facts to back him up. He says in his paper he was a college
dropout so he has to use these facts to make the reader believe him.
Moore strongly uses his own (if you keep his own here its redundant because personal
and his own mean the same) personal convictions regarding his own personal feelings on the
subject. The author(Moore) has made his career on voicing his mind, this is no different one can
expect many of the same characteristics found in all of his work. (This sentence is really hard to
follow, I think what you are saying is that Moore’s work is always strong and he voices his mind
and this piece is no different? So you could say: Idiot Nation follows classic Moore with strong
opinions, or something like that) He likes to challenge the status quo, taking the liberal side to
many and most arguments. Moore uses his own experiences to tell the reader that he is not
scholarly by any means, however he has insight into many of the problems young students face.
he also by not sounding too formal he draws in a larger audience of both adolescent and adults.
Moore’s informal writing style draws in a wider audience. This might be better but still seems a
little out of place in the paragraph.
Moore is huge on common sense; many of his examples would simply seem ridiculous,
like opening a school with no principle, or not knowing what years the civil war occurred. This
tone of simplistic information exchange brings the subject matter down so that everyone can see
the clear nature of problems presented, by stating flaws which appear blatantly simple, he is
eliciting a clear cause-effect, relationship. A simple problem exists therefore a simple solution
must also exist. ( I really like this point, I read it and was like ohh yeah, so good job )
Moore uses many data and stories to corroborate his overall knowledge of the field. He
sites(cites) multiple funding looses, ironically from a president whose wife used to be a librarian.
His empirical evidence gives more depth to his argument and visually shows many of the
problems. Moore states that while schooling has, in his opinion declined, he says that making
money off students has increased, again using empirical data to support his claims of
commercialization. The reader [I] trusts the validity of his sources mostly due to previous claims
about education, and because he as a writer carries a certain stigma with him.( I think you could
add here that Moore brings statics to the table, true facts, so he builds trust with the reader by
doing this.) People know his name, they know that he makes films and movies which challenge
many of the ruling powers of the United States. His writing style invites us (the readers) to think
about what in wrong with our country and how often we as individuals (here you are making it a
personal paper, you could say: how often Americans can change it) can change it. (this right here
would be a good start to a conclusion.)